We’ve got the owner’s manual. Now go read it!

Anyone who has purchased a computer, electronic device or appliance knows that it comes with a thick multilingual owner’s or user’s manual. We also know that nobody reads it. At best, we look at the “QuickStart” sheet and dive right in.

Usually, you can figure things out by asking a more experienced or savvy person or by Googling it. If there’s a serious issue, you may watch an online video or call a tech professional. But the manual is basically discarded, and many manufacturers don’t even bother to include it anymore.

Now imagine you were given a user’s manual for LIFE. Not only would it tell you how to do everything — think, speak, dress, eat, behave, listen, believe, raise your kids — and also what’s going to happen, when and sometimes why.

In the owner’s manual for LIFE, if you don’t follow directions, bad stuff may happen to you or those around you. But it also tells you how to prevent, fix, correct and even reverse those problems.

By now you have figured out that we have that manual for LIFE in the Torah, and the corrective, the patch that repairs, is teshuva.

Chazal tell us that everything that was, is and ever will be is in the Torah. Ben Bag Bag in Pirkei Avot (5:22) tells us, “hafach ba, v’hafach ba, d’chula ba (turn it over every which way, for everything is within it).”

• • •

The Vilna Gaon, whose genius is beyond our comprehension, asserted that all wisdom, all life events, science, human and earthly activity and history are contained in the Torah. That is because it originated from Hashem, was given to us by Hashem and therefore is whole and complete, Ha’tzur tamim pa’alo (Devarim 32:4).

Unfortunately, often it is not apparent to us because our intellectual ability is insufficient, though with time and diligence it can sometimes be ascertained, at least partially, by careful study and inquiry. This is what talmud Torah, learning Torah, is all about — preferably with a Torah scholar, a rabbi, leading the way.

To take the Torah-user’s manual analogy further, the rabbi is the expert, the technician you consult when you don’t understand what the manual is saying. (Ask anyone who’s tried putting an oven on Sabbath mode for the first time!)

For those who think this concept of the Vilna Gaon and Chazal — that everything is in the Torah is somewhat fantastical — consider this: Science tells us that all matter and energy are composed of the same atoms. That means the farthest star in the farthest galaxy consists of the same atoms as the hair on your head. Different quantities, structures and arrangements, but the same building blocks.

All forms of life also contain instructions for production and reproduction in DNA, whether the lowest bacteria or the greatest human king. Different numbers, structures and complexity, but the same fundamental genetic instructions for creation.

That is exactly what Torah is. Hashem gave this wonderful gift, this Divine Guidance for living and understanding, to us, the Jewish people. And He told us to bring it to the world, as Yeshayahu (42:6) says, “L’Or Goyim (a light unto the nations).”

This is sometimes misquoted as “Or L’Goyim (a light to the nations),” with the same meaning. The Biblical commentator, the Radak, tells us b’ferush — explicitly — that this Or, this light, is Torah.

• • •

Last week we read parshat Ki Tavoh. The horrible tochacha (the rebuke from Hashem through the words of Moshe Rabenu) still rings in our ears. We have lived through every one of those tragic, tormented times throughout our long history, and we are still experiencing it.

This coming Shabbat we read Nitzavim-Vayelech. More tochacha.

Chazal tell us Hashem has made this brit (covenant) with all of us, as the pasuk (29:13) says: “V’lo itchem l’vadchem (Not with just you alone” — not just with those nitzavim (standing) here today, but all future generations. Hashem makes this “covenant and oath” for bracha if we obey and klalah (curse) if we don’t (30:1, 19).

But He always gives us a choice and a way back.

“V’Shav Hashem Elokecha et shevutcha vi’rachamecha (Hashem your G-d will return your captives and have mercy upon you)” (30:3).

We have seen that in our own lives, with the return to our ancestral homeland after so many centuries, and with the return of our hostages after so many months in captivity.

And it is not beyond our ability to achieve.

•“Lo’ba’shamayim hi (it — the Torah — is not in the heavens.)” (30:12)

•“Ki karov eilecha ha’davar me’od (it is very near to you).” (30:14)

•Most importantly, the exhortation: “U’vacharta ba’chaim (Choose Life).” (30:19).

It couldn’t be clearer. In this one brief parsha, Hashem has given us our “QuickStart” guide. All our history and all our future; all the warnings, but also all the instructions for success.

Now, as we’ve been instructed since we were children, tzei u’lmad (go and study).

Read the manual!

Shabbat Shalom.

Write: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com